Vegetable Pie with a Zucchini Crust

Here is another recipe my friend Lori made for us last weekend. This vegetable pie was easy to make and tasted so fantastic! We all really, really loved it. I look forward to adapting this recipe to work with whatever vegetables and cheese I have on hand. Thanks for another tasty recipe Lori!

Vegetable Pie with a Zucchini Crust:Photos by For the Love of Cooking.netRecipe by Lori Smith

4 zucchini, shredded and patted dry with paper towels

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups of mozzarella, divided

2 tomatoes, diced

1 green pepper, diced

4 oz of mushrooms, sliced

2 green onions, chopped

1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, shredded

4 basil leaves, chopped

Dried oregano, to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Coat a casserole dish with cooking spray.

After you grate the zucchini, pat it dry with a few paper towels, removing as much moisture as possible.

Combine the zucchini with the eggs and 2 cups of mozzarella. Push the zucchini firmly into the casserole dish, forming a crust. Season with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, if desired. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

After the zucchini has baked, layer the casserole with green pepper, mushrooms, green onions, tomatoes, fresh basil, and finally top it with the remaining 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese and the Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle the top with dried oregano, to taste.

Place into the oven and bake uncovered for 25 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy.

About Pam

My name is Pam and I am a stay at home mom with two children who inspire me to be a better cook. I love using fresh ingredients, organic when possible, and I like to experiment with different tastes and textures. I try to keep my recipes lower in fat but still tasting great. My favorite hobbies are cooking, photography, and blogging so I decided to combine them and create a recipe blog. It has been a wonderful way to organize my recipes and share them at the same time.

Zucchini has a LOT of water in it so if you don’t blot it a LOT to get ALL the water out of it, the bottom layer will not set up as it should. It is not just a “pat dry” as the original instructions say and that is unfortunate. The directions should have been more explicit.

I ADORE this recipe–props to your friend. My boyfriend always requests this for dinner. I try to make it a little more hearty by adding frozen corn, diced carrots, chopped broccoli, garlic and a few more spices. Its great to just dump whatever veggies are left in the fridge onto the zucchini.

I do have a question, though. I hate wasting all of those paper towels when trying to absorb the dampness from the zucchini. Generally, I’ll try to squeeze as much moisture as I can through a colander and then squeeze it through paper towels, but I feel like I’m still using up about half a roll. Any eco-friendly suggestions/tips?

Hi there! Your recipe sounds great! For the gal who’s crust came out too moist here are 2 hints. *Larger zucchini usually contain more moisture, small zucchini tend to be dryer. I suggest spreading your zucchini out on a sheet pan on a paper towel or parchment and letting it dry for 30 minutes or more if after that it is still dry mix a few tablespoons of flour to soak up the excess moisture. Good luck 🙂

Zucchini always should be salted and drained before using. For this recipe the zucchini can be sliced, put in a colander, salted lightly, left to drain the moisture from zucchini, then pat the slices very well to remove salt and chop into a small dice size. Then follow with recipe. All zucchini works best if drained for about 30 minutes.

To get the excess water off the zucchini, I grated it and then let it sit in a colander for about 30 min, then I firmly pressed on it to get out more liquid, then I dumped it on two smooth, clean kitchen towels (so it was a double layer), folded it in half, and then used a rolling pin to firmly press out more water. Worked quite well! Turned out delicious!